The InnovatED Blog

School marketing has become a gregarious task these days. Deciding whether to pay for that commercial promo or billboard can be an unwavering decision while weighing whether to feature your after-school sports program or your premiere teacher. Marketing to most schools equates to how much money can we spend with minimal impact. However, there are so many approaches to marketing that don’t require you to empty your bank account, but instead challenge you to rethink your strategy on WHAT you are communicating. Have you ever considered marketing your academic growth versus proficiency as a means to increase your school enrollment?

Schools use a variety of methods when it comes to marketing and enrolling students. From enrollment applications, parent outreach and marketing dollars, schools can be creative in their outreach campaigns to reach a wider market of parents and students. School enrollment can be a stressful time, so why not try a few fun new avenues to reach those potential parents and students?

Fundraising, sustainable enrollment, recruitment and retention of high-quality educators – all notable challenges facing schools in today’s environment. Imagine the day you discover a magic bullet that could positively impact all of these areas? What if the ‘great’ chocolate chip cookie is the magic bullet?

Schools are built around innovation. Researchers, supporters and parents alike cite the unique approach to education that schools encompass as the catalyst for success. Yet in most cases, if you ask a school leader, a teacher or anyone else involved in the success of a school to talk about what they do that is great, the answer will be “nothing- we just teach kids.”

If you are updating your News Feed, sharing all the fun stories and little happenings at your school, and listening as much as you talk, your reach and number of likes will most certainly grow. The best part about this growth is that those new Likes are more valuable to you because they are already connected to you.

Don’t be afraid to expand your reach to new parents and community members. Facebook is a incredibly powerful marketing tool, which, if you know how, allows you to target people by zip code and various other demographics, characteristics, and buying habits.